Open Forum Fifty Years After Simone De Beauvoir's the Second Sex

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Open Forum

Fifty Years after Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, What is the Situation of French Feminism?

A Conversation with French Historian Michelle Perrot

Ingrid Galster UNIVERSITY OF PADERBORN, GERMANY

In this interview, conducted in the ﬁrst half of 1999, the notable historian speaks about the current state of French feminism. She points out that although its structures have been weak from the beginning, its inﬂuence has been relatively strong. Above all, feminists’ demands for parity in political mandates brought about a change to the French Constitution. Other topics addressed in the interview include the respective strengths of the various feminist movements and their interaction with American feminism.

IG: Michelle Perrot, since the beginning of the French feminist movement in the 1970s you and other historians have thought about the possibility of writing the history of women. One of the outstanding results was the well-known ﬁve-volume study which you edited together with Georges Duby in the early 1990s and which has by now been

The European Journal of Women’s Studies Copyright © 2001 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol. 8(2): 243–252 [1350-5068(200105)8:2;243–252;016886] 08 Galster (jk/d) 22/3/01 1:43 pm Page 244

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translated into 11 languages. You have many students who approach history from the same perspective and who are today in research and teaching positions at French universities. Outside France it is perhaps little known that you have also participated in the feminist debate and that you have regularly used the media to inform a lay audience about the current state of women’s studies and the feminist debate. Fifty years after the publication of The Second Sex, I would like to ask you about your own assessment of French feminism today.

MP: French feminism is a paradoxical affair. Its influence has been relatively strong: yet its structures have been weak from the beginning, so much so that one must wonder today how it has at all been effective. The number of feminist associations is rather limited; there are only about a dozen of them. From the heroic period of 1970–5 only Choisir has remained, owing to Gisèle Halimi. After 20 years of monthly debates, Dialogues des femmes has just been dissolved (Alice Colanis). Regarding the more recent past, organizations come to mind which had been founded in order to promote parity in politics. But most of these were also dissolved. After the modification of the constitution their members felt that they had fulfilled their mission. There is an exception, however, L’Assemblée des femmes (Socialist, Yvette Roudy), which has for four years organized a university summer school. But one could also think of CADAC,1 the Maries pas claires,2 or perhaps the association of female journalists, which fights vigorously against sexism in the press and in advertising by awarding an annual prize to the least sexist piece of advertising; or one could think of Réseau pour la mémoire des femmes, which ensures that the position of women in the city and in chronology is remembered. There are also older associations which practise feminism: for example the AFDU (Association des femmes diplômées des Universités, founded circa 1920), which is currently examining the gender-related inequality of scholarly careers as well as the disastrous consequences of coeducation. Of course, one should not under- rate the importance of different local groups. Furthermore, we have various feminist journals: Nouvelles questions féministes (Christine Delphy), Les Cahiers du GRIF (Françoise Collin), Clio (which was founded in 1995 by female historians) and Lunes (the first issue of which appeared in late 1997). In these all kinds of information can be found. Within the context of feminism there are also numerous conferences on scholarly or political topics, such as the one in January 1999 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Every year, on 8 March – and this was particularly the case in 1999 – there are colloquiums, debates and presentations on the topic of women, among them one in Le Mans on ‘Women and Peace’ and one in Rouen on ‘Women 08 Galster (jk/d) 22/3/01 1:43 pm Page 245

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and the Second Millennium’. There is usually a large audience on such occasions. Feminism is finally capable of mobilizing people on certain occasions, as shown, for instance, in November 1995 during a demonstration of almost 30,000 women in Paris, which was retrospectively seen as an omen of the December movement. And recently feminists organized the boycott of the Galeries Lafayette, where live models presented in shop windows the lingerie of Chantal Thomas. The business was forced to discontinue this kind of advertising. All of these examples display the current nature of feminism: it is vigilant, latently present and ready to emerge when necessary. But the most important action of recent years was the movement in favour of parity (from 1990 on), which led to a genuine discussion within the political class, in society and among feminists themselves. Following parliamentary debates it brought about a modification of the constitution. Today we have an Observatoire de la parité whose task it is to develop specific measures to put parity into practice. Despite its organizational weakness and a certain difficulty in gaining a foothold among the young generation (women under the age of 30 often begin their sentences with ‘I’m not a feminist, but . . .’), feminism represents a latent force capable of mobilizing people if necessary, and a movement which has contributed to change and discussion in French society.

IG: Many egalitarians in the footsteps of de Beauvoir have by now noticed that universalism is a myth because it has de facto been respons- ible for the exclusion of women from politics. According to their opinion, feminists emphasizing difference seem to demand what has already been imposed on them. The deconstructionists, in search of the repressed feminine, will eventually be able to do without women, since the return of the repressed may be equally well if not more so found in men.3 Are not the different paradigms perhaps caught in an aporia?

MP: The egalitarian and universalist feminism – in the mode of de Beauvoir – continues to be, I think, the dominant one in France. But today the egalitarians denounce much more intensively the traps inherent in the universal, such as it has been constructed. This does not mean that they fundamentally question the concept as such. During the debate about parity this constellation became quite clear as the universalists emerged as being divided on it. While some (among them Elisa- beth Badinter, Danielle Sallenave, Elisabeth Roudinesco and Evelyne Pisier) reject parity because it supposedly contradicts universal indi- vidualism, most of the others advocate parity because they see it as a means to achieve the universal, which remains a goal but has not yet become a reality. 08 Galster (jk/d) 22/3/01 1:43 pm Page 246

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In this debate, differentialists were undoubtedly in a more comfortable position than egalitarians, because they could demand parity precisely in the name of this difference and they could ask that in the name of ‘us women’ politics ought to be reformed. But even these women are also divided into two groups: those who speak of two biologically radically different sexes (for instance, Antoinette Fouque, 1995) and those who speak of two genders constituted by culture and history. Practice produces difference, a difference which may be taken by them into politics, not because they are women but because they live as women. Deconstruction, however, is far less important in feminist circles in France. The debate about parity has mixed up the arguments and has affected each group on the wrong side. It has shown how important it has been at the end of this century to take up once again the question of difference between the sexes from the perspectives of anthropology (for example, Héritier, 1996), of philosophy (Fraisse, 1996), of psychoanalysis, biology and, of course, history. There is currently a strongly felt need to pass things in review in order to take stock of all the theories and to enable us to understand matters better.

IG: In the 1980s, theories of Parisian origin had a great impact in the USA. To be more precise, ‘French feminism’ was almost exclusively identiﬁed with texts of Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. Do you have an explanation for this misleading pars pro toto?

MP: The exclusive assimilation of ‘French feminism’ with differentialism is indeed remarkable and has always astonished French feminists, who are predominantly opposed to this. Occasionally they are in loud voice, as was the case around 1975 in the dispute that arose around the appropriation of the abbreviation ‘MLF’ (Mouvement de libération des femmes) by Antoinette Fouque’s ‘Psych & Po’ group (Psychanalyse et Politique). Nowadays, however, the dispute looks quite ridiculous. There are good reasons for the assimilation. First of all, there is the actual literary talent of the protagonists (who, by the way, differ a great deal). At the beginning of the 1970s, that is those years in which the women’s movement experienced a strong upswing, they wrote new and important works. It seemed as if the movement originated from these works, but that was by no means the case. Then there are the international repercussions which are related to their positions in the intellectual area. As a specialist in English and American literature (she worked on Joyce), Cixous had been familiar with the USA and the American way of thinking for years. She was, as it were, ‘on the same level’. Owing to her being part of the group and the journal Tel Quel 08 Galster (jk/d) 22/3/01 1:43 pm Page 247

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and owing to her husband Philippe Sollers, Kristeva was one of these new ‘mandarins’, the ‘samurais’ she described in the novel or tale of the same title. I don’t know much about the ties of Luce Irigaray. The connections with psychoanalysis – direct in the cases of Irigaray and Kristeva, less direct in the case of Cixous – are also of great importance. Lacan was at the height of his achievements, and these women whom Antoinette Fouque wanted to bring together with the help of ‘Psych & Po’ and the famous Librairie des femmes seemed to represent the female counterpart of the theory. This was a strong and visible group whose language coincided with the struggle of women, a language which derived from the body – ﬁnally a celebrated body, unlike de Beauvoir’s – and this body served as the basis for a culture of difference, of femininity. Their texts, their écriture, their language responded to a genuinely existing need for proud self-afﬁrmation. It has to be added that at that time there was nothing comparable in other disciplines, neither in anthropology nor in history. There was no women’s history deserving of this name. I would also like to add that the Americans found there what they had been looking for: the expression of a radical difference which would bring about the foundation of separate genders and perhaps establish com- munitarism. My answers have a hypothetical character, because we are talking about a chapter in the history of intellectuals which really needs to be written.

IG: Today feminist theory seems to be developed in the USA rather than in France. I’m especially thinking of the great interest raised by the works of Judith Butler. Although Butler has been strongly inﬂuenced by French theory, she nevertheless succeeded in developing her own position. Are there still feminists at all in France who advance theory?

MP: As far as theory is concerned, they undoubtedly lack the intensity of American studies. This is partially owing to the institutional situation. Here in France we don’t have anything that compares with ‘women’s studies’ or ‘gender studies’. Yet one should nevertheless not neglect what has already been done in research. Differentialism is clearly on the decline. This development accompanies the deep crisis of psychoanalysis. The theses of écriture féminine are no longer topical. Nathalie Sarraute distanced herself from them a long time ago. And just recently, Monique Wittig, considered one of the ﬁgureheads of this direction, has done the same. ‘There is no such thing as feminine literature: for me it does not exist. In literature I do not differentiate between women and men. Either one is a writer or one is not’, she said in an interview in Libération (17 June 1999), in which she 08 Galster (jk/d) 22/3/01 1:43 pm Page 248

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moreover rejected any kind of ‘féminitude’, any concept of female or human nature determined by one’s biological sex, and in which she distanced herself from the right to difference. ‘The position of the supposedly normal has to be abandoned: we have to overcome sex categories.’ In a way this entails a renunciation of ‘King Sex’ prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s. One has to add, by the way, that Nathalie Sarraute and Monique Wittig, although they have contested the conventions of language and have thought about gender-related differences of writing, have never been adepts of écriture féminine. Françoise Armengaud (1998) is right in emphasizing this. If they have been ranked with this current, then it is certainly against their will. In France, the most important research is conducted in the social sciences: in sociology (see, for example, the journal MAGE, 1999), in anthropology (see the already mentioned study of Françoise Héritier and works of Nicole-Claude Mathieu and others) and in history. The history of women does not correspond to a particular theory as such but is instead based on various theoretical notions, the most important of which derive from Michel Foucault, especially the concept of historicity (see Perrot, 1998: 413–24). As far as philosophy is concerned, I would like to draw attention to Geneviève Fraisse’s Les Femmes et leur histoire (Fraisse, 1998) and to works of Françoise Collin, the founder of Les Cahiers du GRIF. Her latest work, Je partirais d’un mot: Le champ symbolique (Collin, 1999), a collection of articles, represents, I think, the most intelligent contribution to thinking about contemporary feminism. Collin situates herself clearly in the anti-essentialist camp, but nevertheless urges everyone to leave this debate behind them.

IG: The relations between France and the USA are, as far as feminism is concerned, frequently marked by misunderstandings and ignorance. We have already talked about the ‘French feminism’ which for Americans often includes only differentialists. Conversely, the discussion following the publication of Mona Ozouf’s Les Mots des femmes in 19954 has shown that American feminists, even someone like Judith Butler, whose ideas are currently intensively taken note of in German-speaking countries, are hardly known in France. Can you explain these misunderstandings as well as the fact that French feminists are inclined to dwell on themselves?

MP: There is indeed in French society in general and in certain intellectual circles in particular, and here especially among the left, an astonish- ing anti-Americanism, which, owing to the outrageous notion of French superiority, leads to an extremely disadvantageous blindness. Among the French, feminists are probably still the most receptive to American thought, mainly because of their long-standing contacts with ‘Women’s 08 Galster (jk/d) 22/3/01 1:43 pm Page 249

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Lib’. We have early on adapted American thought, especially in the ﬁeld of history, in which authors such as Natalie Zemon Davis, Joan Scott (whose Gender and the Politics of History has become a classic here), Caroll Smith-Rosenberg, Claudia Koonz and others are widely read. Mona Ozouf’s study does not so much express the position of French feminists as it presents – and rather strangely so because the author is familiar with the USA – a certain ‘demonization’ of American feminism (see Ezekiel, 1996), which can be found quite frequently, for instance also in the work of Gilles Lipovetsky. The latter, however, uses it to caricature feminism per se. French feminists are undoubtedly inclined to concentrate on themselves. And yet in the case at issue they are more likely to clear the way for American feminism, with which they feel united most of the time.

IG: Recently two books on feminist themes by male authors – La Troisième femme by Gilles Lipovetsky (1997), whom you just mentioned, and La Domination masculine by Pierre Bourdieu (1998) – provoked debate. What is your assessment of the fact that men have begun to preoccupy themselves with feminism?

MP: When French intellectuals of the male sex deal with feminism, they undoubtedly do so because they think that it has become important. Their preoccupation with it indicates that feminism has developed and begun to play a significant role in public. Hence their interest is evidence of a kind of recognition. The success of the two works is, by the way, a clear sign of the ‘domination masculine’, the predominance of men in the intellectual area. Women, by contrast, find it much harder to make themselves heard. This being said, I think that these books, which I had the oppor- tunity to review (one in Nouvel Observateur, the other in Libération and the first issue of the journal MAGE, 1999), display especially the great ignorance of these differently prestigious authors regarding feminism in general and French feminism in particular. Pierre Bourdieu, who quotes Butler, MacKinnon and others, appears to be ignorant of wide areas of feminist research in France, of which, from the start, he does not have a high opinion. Is it possible for women qua dominated to think their domination? That is one of the questions he asks.

IG: While French women are, in contrast to German women, more often found in tenured academic positions, they less frequently hold political mandates. Hence it is not surprising that the debate in the 1990s was, as you already pointed out, strongly dominated in France by the question of parity, a still controversial much discussed topic. Differentialists are in favour of parity so that society may proﬁt from supposedly feminine characteristics. The egalitarians are, however, divided on it. Some of them 08 Galster (jk/d) 22/3/01 1:43 pm Page 250

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are strictly against it, because they are afraid of a reversed sexism; others predict that without reforms the abstract notion of equality will ensure that women continue to be excluded from politics. What is your opinion on this?

MP: You are right. French women are relatively numerous at universities, although unequally so in the different areas, as is shown in Christophe Charle’s recently published study (Charle, 1999). In 1992 women made up 28 percent of the faculty; in philological subjects they constituted 23 percent of the professors and 41 percent of the maîtres de conférences; in the sciences, however, the respective proportions were only 8 and 27 percent. But in politics there are even fewer women, with only 6 percent of members of parliament being women (after the national election of 1997). This belatedness in politics, which borders on exclusion, is a French trait of long standing, because our nation, in which human rights were first declared, was one of the last in Europe to grant women the right to vote (it happened only in 1944). The critique of universalism derives from this situation, as does the demand for parity, which, however, really originated from European institutions, but found effective expression in the book Aux urnes, citoyennes! written by Françoise Gaspard, Anne le Gall and Claude Servan-Schreiber and published in 1992. Its authors never offered a single argument favouring difference but only referred to rights/law (le droit), and they defended parity because they felt that equality would thus be achieved. And I think that many women understood it that way and still do. It was only the manifesto published by 10 former female secretaries of state in L’Express which complicated things, namely by the perception that women could modify political practice through their femininity. Some time afterwards the book by Sylviane Agacinski (1998), the wife of the French premier, pointed in the same direction. This provoked a hostile reaction from the ‘universalists’ headed by Elisabeth Badinter5 and led to new debates about citizenship and the place of women within the polity. In these discussions the demand for parity was backed by a majority in politics (which party would have dared be against it?) and was popular in public opinion. As far as I myself am concerned, I have advocated parity from the beginning, signed the manifesto of the 577 (Le Monde, 1993) and defended in the same paper the idea of a ‘universalist parity’. The universal is a goal, not a reality, and parity is the means by which to achieve it. Hence I am pleased about the recent modification of the constitution, which codifies this notion. I furthermore belong to the Observatoire de la parité, whose referee is Mme Dominique Gillot, a member of parliament for the Socialist Party, and whose task it is to suggest specific measures 08 Galster (jk/d) 22/3/01 1:43 pm Page 251

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aimed at putting political parity into practice and to encourage parity in all areas.

NOTES

The interview was conducted in writing. The questions were sent to Michelle Perrot in February 1999 and the answers were given in July 1999. Michelle Perrot (born in 1928) is a historian and professor emerita of the Université de Paris VII- Denis Diderot. There she developed the historiography of women and gender, which can today be considered one of the most important ﬁelds of French historiography. Together with Georges Duby, she edited the ﬁve-volume Histoire des femmes en Occident (Duby and Perrot, 1991–2). Her most recent publications are Femmes publiques (Perrot, 1997) and Les Femmes ou les silences de l’histoire (Perrot, 1998). For biographical information, see Perrot (1987). See also the interview in Rodgers (1998). The original French version of this interview appeared in a special issue of the journal Lendemains (No. 94, 1999), edited by Ingrid Galster on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of publication of The Second Sex. The text was translated into English by Brigitte Glaser. 1. CADAC stands for: Coordination nationale des associations pour le droit à l’avortement et à la contraception. 2. The name of this organization alludes to the popular French women’s magazine Marie-Claire. 3. For more information on the current state of this debate, see Galster (1999: 600). 4. See the feature on this topic published on this occasion by the Parisian journal Le Débat (1995). 5. See Badinter et al. (1999). This collection of essays consists of contributions from opponents of parity. For a historical survey presented from a pro-parity perspective, see Mossuz-Lavau (1998).

REFERENCES

Agacinski, Sylviane (1998) Politique des sexes. Paris: Seuil. Armengaud, Françoise (1998) ‘Sarraute et Wittig: La contestation des conventions du discours’, Nouvelles questions féministes 19: 1. Badinter, Elisabeth et al. (1999) Le Piège de la parité. Paris: Hachette Littératures. Bourdieu, Pierre (1998) La Domination masculine. Paris: Seuil. Charle, Christophe (1999) ‘Les Femmes dans l’enseignement supérieur. Dynamique et freins d’une présence, 1946–1992’, pp. 84–105 in Vincent Duclert, Rémi Fabre and Patrick Fridenson (eds) Avenirs et avant-gardes en France, XIXe–XXe siècles: Hommage à Madeleine Rebérioux. Paris: La Découverte. Collin, Françoise (1999) Je partirais d’un mot: Le Champ symbolique. Paris: Fus Art. Duby, Georges and Michelle Perrot, eds (1991–2) Histoire des femmes en Occident, 5 vols. Paris: Plon. Ezekiel, Judith (1996) ‘Antiféminisme et antiaméricanisme: un mariage politique- ment réussi?’, Nouvelles questions féministes 17(1): 59–76. Fouque, Antoinette (1995) Il y a deux sexes: Essais de féminologie. 1989–1995. Paris: Gallimard. 08 Galster (jk/d) 22/3/01 1:43 pm Page 252

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Fraisse, Geneviève (1996) La Différence des sexes. Paris: PUF. Fraisse, Geneviève (1998) Les Femmes et leur histoire. Paris: Gallimard. Galster, Ingrid (1999) ‘Positionen des französischen Feminismus’, pp. 591–602 in Hiltrud Gnüg and Renate Möhrmann (eds) Frauen Literatur Geschichte: Schreibende Frauen vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Metzler. Gaspard, Françoise, Anne le Gall and Claude Servan-Schreiber (1992) Aux urnes, citoyennes! Paris: Seuil. Héritier, Françoise (1996) Masculin/féminin: La Pensée de la différence. Paris: Odile Jacob. Le Débat (1995) ‘Femmes, une singularité française?’, 87 (Nov.–Dec.) (contributors include Elisabeth Badinter, Lynn Hunt, Mona Ozouf, Michelle Perrot and Joan W. Scott). Le Monde (1993) ‘Pour une démocratie paritaire’, 10 Nov. Lipovetsky, Gilles (1997) La Troisième femme: Permanence et révolution du féminin. Paris: Gallimard. MAGE (1999) ‘Controverses: La domination masculine de Pierre Bourdieu lu par Michelle Perrot, Yves Sintomer, Beate Krais, Marie Duru-Bellat. Réponse de P. Bourdieu’, Travail, Genre et Sociétés. Revue du MAGE 1: 203–34. Mossuz-Lavau, Janine (1998) Femmes/hommes pour la parité. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Ozouf, Mona (1995) Les Mots des femmes: Essais sur la singularité française. Paris: Fayard. Perrot, Michelle (1987) ‘L’Air du temps’, pp. 241–92 in Pierre Nora (ed.) Essais d’ego-histoire. Paris: Gallimard. Perrot, Michelle (1997) Femmes publiques. Paris: Textuel. Perrot, Michelle (1998) Les Femmes ou les silences de l’histoire. Paris: Flammarion. Rodgers, Catherine (1998) Le Deuxième Sexe de Simone de Beauvoir: Un héritage admiré et contesté. Paris: L’Harmattan.

Ingrid Galster is a professor of Romance Literatures at the University of Paderborn. Her research interests include de Beauvoir, Sartre, the intellectual and feminist debate in France and Latin America, as well as gender studies and historical ﬁction. Recent publications include: ‘Le Scandale du Deuxième Sexe en 1949’, L’Histoire (Paris, May 1999); Cinquante ans après Le Deuxième Sexe: Beauvoir en débats’, Lendemains 24 (1999, No. 94); and, Pour une édition critique du Deuxième Sexe (proceedings of an international and interdisciplinary conference in November 1999 at the Catholic University of Eichstätt, Germany), Paris: L’Harmattan, forth- coming. Address: University of Paderborn, Fachbereich 3/Romanistik, D-33095 Paderborn, Germany.